A Quiet Word
by Grimm Sister
Summary: Quiet thoughts on the film version of Prince Caspian. Take a new look at the intricacies of this new story we were told, remaking the myths and legends of the Kings and Queens of Old to speak to our own world. Told in 5 installments covering half an hour
1. A quiet hope

**A/N: **This is less story than thoughtful summary. There will be five chapters, each covering one half-hour of the movie. I know, it's not the books, but that's one of the reasons I wanted to write it. It's a different, related beautiful story. I hope you enjoy if you choose to read. Will be updated weekly.

**Updated A/N:** I has been rightfully pointed out that I owe Jacob from Television Without Pity almost as much credit as C.S. Lewis for this project. I agree that I should have acknowledged this from the beginning. Particularly his Season 4 recaps of _Battlestar Galactica _were hugely inspirational for this project. The phrase "Change feels like dying because it is," also originally belongs to him.

* * *

_It started out as a feeling, which then turned into a hope…_

An object moves across the moon. It only obscures its light for a moment, but it is enough that for a moment we thought we were all in darkness. A woman screams, and we do not, for a moment, know why. The mother makes a sound as if she is dying as a new life enters the world. Three women hover around the mother, with towels and smiles and knowing looks. When the baby is born, the mother is amazed. Because she screamed as if she was dying and her son was born instead. She is all wonder at the transformation. The world is new.

Her husband is all wonder at how the world aligns itself to his purposes. The world is new, there is no room for the old world in Lord Protector Miraz's new one. His general already knew what to do. There was a scream like someone was dying, and it wasn't just because someone was being born.

A soldier moves in a hallway, but a shadowed figure is quicker. A figure that has embraced the shadows his entire life, used them to conceal everything and allow him to move in this new world as easily as he did in the old one. A shadowed figure who exists in the border between the two, in the shadows cast on the moon before the object eclipses its light but before the moon shines out anew, stronger than ever.

The shadow across the moon moves to Prince Caspian's chambers, the way he has practiced night after night teaching a young man to look up at the stars and see the moon as well as the darkness – the stars and their light in the midst of the dark sky. He tells him his aunt has given birth to a son, and, though he will protest later, the prince knows what that means. He knows that he has just become a piece of the old world that does not fit into the new world Miraz will make around his son.

A secret chamber hidden in a wardrobe saves him from the men who encircle his bed and fire fire fire on their rightful prince. Because there is no room in the new world for the beauty of the old. Except in the trace of the Shadow Across the Moon, hidden behind it, the point where the light converges with the darkness. Prince Caspian of the Telmarines, the rightful heir to the throne of Telmar and future Enemy Number One of Narnia, has Queen Susan's Horn placed in his hands by the tutor he has known all his life. In the darkness, as the new world eclipses the old, the Shadow on the Moon changes what will emerge on the other side.

At least that was his plan. "Everything you know is about to change." Now it must be defended. Caspian rides hard into the night, fleeing his family and the darkness of Telmar. Fleeing the new world so that the old one can reclaim its own. The world was never big enough for both of them. The one that loses the battle has two choices: death and exile within your own borders. But those just are the lies of Telmar; there is always a third choice. Caspian rides into the night, uncertain which fate will befall him now that he is part of the old world the Telmarines do nothing but seek to eradicate. To make way for the new. Whether it is better or worse.

He plunges into the Trees, so skilled at riding amidst them he must have had some of his people's superstition about them drilled out. But he grits his teeth just as the guards do when the general insists, because we all wince but we all get over superstitions. Because he was raised among the people of Telmar all of his life, the Narnians are just a story. A story he wishes was real, but what is real is the world and people of Telmar. They are Narnia now. A future kings knows this better than anyone, he only falls back on fairy stories when he too is part of the old world. He only became that this very night. Things we must remember.

The river claims a guard and a tree branch gets Caspian. A sign of things to come. Because he looked back, back to the new world being built which has no use for him. And it knocked him flat, because his people turned from him. The old world which came to greet him was just as hostile at first. Two dwarfs appear – and they remember what happened the last time the new world caught up to their enclave of the old one. Dwarves are creatures of Narnia, but not creatures of Aslan. They belonged to the White Witch; they belong to Jadis. When the new world came with Aslan and the Golden Age and the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, they were eclipsed. There was no room for them in the new world. They know this territory better than the other Narnians, who were children of Aslan and the human kings and queens of old in the last Golden Age.

Trumpkin goes to deal with the newest world yet, and Nikabrik can only watch helplessly as the old world is summoned. The oldest world since the White World of Jadis. But not old enough to include him. It's no wonder he cries out to stop him.

The Horn of Queen Susan sounds far out across the darkness as it eclipses the moon. When the Shadow is removed, the entire world is different.

The song of the Horn was only a car, honking at Lucy – who never needed to hear the Horn to believe in the Summons. She is running toward Susan, who picks up a magazine, sees the world as it is set before her. There is good stuff in the world as it is – that's Amelia Earnhart on the cover. Not a bad role model. There are also foolish little boys sniffing around her, this very pretty girl who is also a loner, an outcast. More than he will ever know. He thinks they are on equal footing. She was a Queen once, in a Golden Wood. He is nice but no consort for Queen Susan The Gentle of Narnia. She tells him her name is Phyllis. She wishes it was, sometimes. She sees the world as it is, no more and no less. The old world and the new, just as they are, whichever is winning at the moment is what she sees. She doesn't need him telling her life back to her as he insists on doing, the girl who sits alone at lunch, trying to show her that they are kindred spirits. He is no King, but then, here she is no Queen.

Lucy runs up and shatters the "Phyllis" lie. It was nothing more or less than kindness to lie, but for whom is less clear. The poor besotted boy didn't care what her real name was, he didn't see (or probably even care because boys suck like that) who she really was; but for Queen Susan, who is forced to be nothing more than the elder Pevensie girl for a year, the Phyllis girl he describes may be a loser, but she would be easier. She makes no apology to either of them when the lie breaks, just picks up her bag and runs through the world as it is now. Lucy came to get her because she doesn't know what to do with the world as it is now.

But even in such a world, a lion stands guard over the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve, especially these four. In ways even Lucy does not see, He is always watching.

These poor, silly four. Peter so full of pride, trying to force the world to be the way it once was. Trying to force the world to be as he sees it. Edmund, who sees both sides, the old and the new, leaps in to help his brother. His brother, who for a moment looked scared as the eldest Pevensie fought three to four boys, willing his strength as a kingly warrior – King Peter the Magnificent who trounced Calormen and giants and the White Witch of Narnia by the strength of his arm – to return to him now in a tube station on the way back to school. For a moment, he is afraid because he knows that he will fail, just as he has a hundred times over the past year. But he cannot stop, cannot stop trying to will the strength of The Magnificent back into his arm, willing the world to be the way it was once, the way he still sees it, the ways he knows it could be. As all truly Magnificent men and all petulant megolomaniacs do. Sometimes it is so very hard to tell them apart. The key is what happens when the real world crashes back down.

The fight breaks up and the Pevensies gather together as everyone scatters. "Act your age," was the ultimate slap. From a soldier, a toy soldier compared to the ones he used to command. His brother and sisters are exacerbated later. "What was it this time?" Susan asks, seeing the world as it is. Her brother and his fighting, each reason sillier than the last. A story unworthy of High King Peter of Narnia, but all Susan sees now is Peter Pevensie, and this is just to be expected. Lucy is horrified. A bully bumped her brother, "So you hit him?" Because that behavior is not worthy of High King Peter of Narnia. The fact that they tried to make him apologize and acted like jerks scarcely makes it better, to Lucy who does not need to be in Narnia to believe or to take advantage of its lessons. Susan sighs and tells him to let it go next time. "Don't you ever get tired of being treated like a kid?" Peter demands, trying to force the world to take the shape it has in his mind. Edmund, who sees both sides, laughs and tells him, "We are kids." So do what you can as Peter Pevensie, because not only Narnia is beautiful. Aslan watches over us even in England.

"It's been a year. How long does he expect us to wait?" Peter demands, willing even Aslan to behave as he needs Him to. He is desperate, and he is tired of trying to make the world take a shape it was not meant for. Wanting to go home, to the old world where he was special and everything was shining and green and he was able to make a difference. He sits down beside his siblings on the bench, they naturally settled into their positions on the thrones of Cair Paravel. Except Susan, who sees the world as it is now, who stands lecturing three kids on a bench, "I think it's time we accepted that we live here now. And stop trying to pretend something different." But that is too hard even for Susan Pevensie when she sees the poor boy coming toward her. She was once courted by emperors and princelings, now only foolish loners. But that boy is brave and sweet and thinks he found a soulmate. She cannot see that, most people can't. If she has to be here, she would rather be Phyllis – the name of a girl out of his league, who is pretty and popular, rather than Susan who turns to her brothers and sister and says to pretend to be her friends.

Edmund just stares at her; they are her friends. He sees both sides, so he calls both sides on their bull. Peter and Susan, who have opposite approaches to the end of childhood, are both called on the carpet by King Edmund the Just who has not yet reached it.

But we don't have time for that, because Lucy who always believes, sees Aslan and Narnia around every corner – because they _are_ around every corner – feels the pinch first. The three stare at her for a moment, telling her not to do this now – it hurts too much just now. All of their wounds are open. Peter stops talking next, yells at Edmund to stop, but Edmund wasn't touching him. Susan stops a moment later, both of the elder Pevensies distressed. Edmund, who sees both sides of the world, is calm, as is Lucy, who is finally going home – the magic she's been waiting for since they left Narnia – and is elated. "It feels like magic!" Susan, who sees the world as it is, which at the moment is best described as "falling apart all around them," says to hold hands lest they all end up somewhere different.

_It started out as a feeling, which then grew into a hope, which then turned into a quiet thought, which then turned into a quiet word…_

The train station signs blow away, leaving them without signposts. Then the bricks of their lives dissolve and blow away as if they never held strong at all. As if they were never solid. The train passes through, taking people from one world to another, now quite literally the door to another world. As if this mundane transportation system has been practicing all this time to accomplish something wondrous when summoned. Essentially, it is doing nothing more than it always does.

A beach bordered by great cliffs and a sparkling blue sea settles all around them when the music stops. They look about in a very different tunnel, one which opens into the light of a glorious day on the shore. The Kings and Queens of Narnia, the Quadruple Pillars of the Old World, walk back into their Kingdom.

They've been called home.

The girl who always believed in this world and the girl who always saw the world just as it is set before her meet each other's eyes and smile, their worlds finally, for the first time in a year, matching each other exactly. They run and fling off their shoes and knee socks and ugly red jackets, elated. Peter and Edmund grin, their quarrel forgotten – the eternal quarrel of the mediator and the visionary for how the world will be changed. They join the girls as they run across the sands of _home. _

Peter relaxes and splashes his sisters in the water, the world finally as he would have it be after a year of heartbreak. Edmund, who sees both worlds, the new and the old at once, looks up the cliff and sees ruins. There were no ruins in the Golden Age of Narnia. He seemed just as cheerful to see this new version of their old world, but the rest of the Pevensie children fall silent.

They wander among the ruins, wondering what stories, what legends of Narnia they had left undiscovered and unexplored in their long forty year reign. What secrets, what delightful tales, did they never know about their beloved country? They move among the ruins, wondering who once lived there. Never guessing. They are the legends of their beloved Narnia now. They knew from the very first moment, but even Lucy and Edmund cannot bear that yet.

Another home that was is now gone. Susan is the first to see it: the new world as it is now, even the world of Narnia changed. Edmund, who sees both, recognizes his chess piece in the ruins – his solid gold chess set, as compared to his one at home. Then Lucy sees their thrones, and she sees the throne room of Cair Paravel in the ruins, just as easily as she would if the walls stood all around her. And, still in the remnants of their school uniforms, the Kings and Queens of Old return to their home in Cair Paravel.

At the same time, the new world stands upon a new castle, Miraz and Prunaprismia stand with their child on the battlements as the general arrives. The baby is swaddled in pearly clothes – why do people do that? – and Miraz hands his child to his wife, heads down to the stables to begin making the world in the image of the baby in Prunaprismia's arms.

But the figure on the horse is not the prince who was the rightful king – the rightful king of what is already the old order of Telmar. Instead, an older world still has come to the Lords of Telmar. But Miraz was always at his best stamping on the neck of the old world, to make way for the new. He is surprised only for a moment; then he is pleased. He has stamped on the neck of too many old worlds to fear the return of this ancient one.

Sopespian stands in the Council Chambers and reminds the empty chairs of his prophecies and the living lords of the empty chairs that surround them. Miraz comes busting in and begins this round of the game he has played endlessly with Sopespian these many years, ever since the fall of Caspian IX. Sopespian's proxy declares that he has been acting as if he were the king all of these years, and now even the rightful heir to the throne has gone missing, so that Sopespian can hide behind snark, undercut the Lord Protector's authority even more, "Best wishes on the birth of your son." Condolences on the loss of your nephew, and on the very same night!

But he overstretches, because he doesn't know how many cards Miraz is holding. "I trust you can tell us how such a tragedy could have occurred." Yes, he can. Sopespian was expecting politician-speak, which wouldn't have sufficed here. Because Miraz's plan was bad. It was obvious and had way too many conspirators and clearly the Council of Nobles wasn't going to just go along with this because they were in such fear of Miraz – not if Sopespian can rile them up so easily. It was a stupid, almost desperate plan, because if his son was not born the rightful heir, Miraz knew better than anyone, then he never would be. Like Prince Hal of England.

But the old world gave Lord Miraz's bad plan a gift – a scapegoat for his machinations. And it's perfect, because goodness knows the dwarves of Narnia who have been "the old way" since the White World of Jadis fell would have kidnapped the rightful heir to the Telmarine throne if they had thought of it and could have pulled it off. It might even have been his professor's backup plan if Caspian didn't fall in love with the old tales. "Our beloved Caspian has been abducted – by _Narnians._"

And Miraz revels in their laughter, their cries that he has gone too far. Because the more that they cry out now, the more they silence their voices forever when he brings them proof. If they laugh now, they can never laugh again. Not once Trumpkin is brought before them.

They stop. Miraz has won.

A living "fairy tale." And Miraz revels in his victory as a creature of a world so old we have forgotten just how cold and White it was falls to his knees in the center of the Council of Telmar, becomes the foundation of the new world Miraz builds around the baby in Prunaprismia's arms. "Narnia was once a savage land." He speaks truer than he knows, and Trumpkin is a creature of the savage world of Jadis. "And much blood was shed" to end it. But while the Telmarines bickered, the dwarves and the other creatures of Narnia came together again at last. And they spread like fire (or, you know, cockroaches) underground, watching and waiting. For the return of Aslan or the right moment to strike.

Miraz beats Trumpkin across the face and his gag slips. He looks up, facing down the man with such a height advantage, and he is awesome. "And you wonder why we don't like you." Which, actually, I don't think has ever crossed any of the Telmarine's minds – but it's what a Narnian would think of. The dwarves are creatures of Narnia even if they are not yet children of Aslan.

Seemingly apropos of nothing, Miraz threatens to cut down the Trees. Obstensibly to find the Old World wherever it nests, but also because the fairy tale the Telmarine still fear – down in their spines if no longer acknowledged in their minds – is the way the Trees danced and went to war when Narnia was full of the Old Music. When the very world itself rose against them. Trumpkin does not break his gaze as the pretended king makes his threats, and the dwarf knows that Miraz has just told a creature of Narnia how the Telmarines can be defeated. He just doesn't believe it can happen – all the Old Music is gone.

But his image fades into Edmund's, the same music flowing around both of them – the two who can move amongst both worlds and find their places within them. And he finds a great stone that flew from a catapult. This isn't just time, but a War as well. A War which the High King did not lead, a war that happened after the Kings and Queens of Old abandoned Narnia.

They find a door to a cellar and push aside the door. Peter begins to tear his shirt and make a torch to use in Narnia, and Edmund who can move easily in both worlds smiles while his elder brother does it before announcing that he has a modern torch, though no matches. But because the world is again how he willed it to be for so long, Peter only laughs at himself.

They enter an enclave lit from above – neither torch necessary for Lucy who stares over their forgotten treasures in the light of day. Lucy takes out a dress and marvels that she was ever so tall, and Susan says wistfully that they were older then, and Edmund laughs and puts the two timelines together with ease. Peter stands aloof, wishing the world were better than even this. It's what makes him a King. He stares at his own statue, wondering that he was once the man standing so strong there. It's been so long since he felt like Peter the Magnificent.

In a box full of treasures, all four children all know exactly which ones truly belong to them. Susan misses her Horn, but the rest of the First Christmas in a Century gifts are in their hands almost instantly. Peter reads from his sword, "When Aslan bares his teeth, Winter will meet its end." That's his job, he is one of Aslan's bared teeth. Lucy finishes, "When he shakes his mane, we will have Spring again." She always remembered, the return of gentleness and love that was always there. Around every corner. But even Aslan cannot bring back the dead – everyone they knew and loved in Narnia has gone. Long ago. Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers, like the Kings and Queens of Old, are the legends of Narnia now. She will never see James McAvoy's gorgeous face again.

A creature of an older world still stares at the soldiers who bring him to execution. They toss him in the river, but Susan is there with her arrows. Peter pulls him out of the water. And the Golden Age of Narnia rescues a creature of the White World from the new order of the Telmarines. And he grumps at them, because he is not a child of their world. "That's the best you can come up with." The Telmarines were killing off the dwarves just fine without the help of Aslan's minions.

And then my heart breaks, as Trumpkin takes sight of the sword in Peter's hand, sees the way the Pevensie children naturally stand, now in their Narnian garments. Children armed for battle, the Old Music swelling around them as if they were so much more. They are, but Trumpkin was not designed to see it. "You're it?" He is so sad, and so disappointed, and so tired. The Golden Age is only this – four children are the great Kings and Queens of Old. Peter doesn't help by introducing himself as "the Magnificent." Susan snarks at him, taking in the new world where he isn't so much. Trumpkin laughs and agrees, laughing at the whole foolish world that dumped this mess at his feet.

Then High King Peter of Narnia hands Trumpkin his own sword, given by Father Christmas and knighted by Aslan himself, so that he can fight King Edmund the Just to prove their worth. Edmund smiles, sees both sides of the mess, and a creature of Jadis holds the sword of Aslan in his hands.

Not for long, Edmund wins the fight and knocks it from his hands. And Trumpkin falls back, impressed and hopeful for a moment. The Horn worked after all. The first dwarf to cross to a newer world than the White one.

Elsewhere, a prince opens his eyes to an older world. Caspian wakes up in a hole that is warm and inviting and furnished for much smaller people. Nikabrik who remembers the icy flash of the White World – whose name shows how the world has buffeted him about, thrown everything it could at his small but hard body – and Trufflehunter the badger whose Task is to remember the Golden Age amongst the rest of Narnia's history – whose name reminds him to find what is wonderful in the midst of the muck – argue over what to do with him. You can guess which side each is on.

Not trusting the Gold to win over the Ice, Caspian makes a break for it and ends up fighting half-heartedly with Nikabrik as Trufflehunter complains at both of them. "If we're taking a vote, I'm with [Trufflehunter]," he says, at one point. The Gold over the Ice; he'll have another shot at this choice.

Caspian marvels that they're real Narnians, first as the future king of Telmar who knows that this is a problem that was supposed to have been solved already. He tells them who he is, a part of the old world as they are, the Prince dethroned by his uncle. Trufflehunter gets quiet and serious for the opposite reason Nikabrik relaxes that they won't have to kill him themselves. He offers to leave so that they will be safe, and the Trufflehunter holds the Horn of Queen Susan reverently in his hands – knowing that the Herald of the Return of the Golden Age stands before him. "You're meant to save us. Don't you know what this is?"

Don't you know that you already have? No one has ever said anything like that to Caspian before, who was trained to be a future ruler of the Telmarines. These Narnians are so much more wonderful, and they are asking so much more. A quiet hope, which they have borne as silent, watchful faith all these long centuries, finally answered in the most unlikely form imaginable.

_I'll come back when you call me…_


	2. that grew louder

_It started out as a feeling, which then grew into a hope, which then turned into a quiet thought, which then turned into a quiet word, _

_and then that word grew louder…_

Caspian's head was full of the Tales of Old Narnia, and he loved them. But it was a quiet thought, because he is a future king of the Telmarines. And the Narnians are gone. Then one day, he blew a Horn, and the Old World came back to life in front of him. And it whispered to him, "You're meant to save us. Don't you know what this is?"

The man who does, the Shadow over the Moon, returns to his study in the castle to find the newest world waiting for him – the man who can no longer exist on the border between worlds. The failed Edmund, who has been replaced by The Just. King Miraz sticks Queen Susan's arrows into an illustration of her, and the Shadow can't help looking at it with longing. He tells the man who would be king the old legend of the Horn, implies without actually saying that he never told them to Caspian. When he is about to be imprisoned, he meets Miraz's eyes as strong as Trumpkin and smiling as Lucy but as fantastic as neither. The compromise of the Shadow and the half-blood.

His plan was to go, as a half-dwarf, half-human, to the future King of the Telmarines and make him a friend of Old Narnia. It was subtle and full of the wildest hope – that only he in all of Narnia could have imagined – it is the reason the Kings and Queens of Old were called to return. It was also a plan destined to fail. Because Caspian is a Telmarine King, and as a King he is more than his own vain wish that fairy tales are real. When they are a threat to his people, he would behave as the other good men who came before in his line did. That's what so nasty about racism and war, it's destruction of the souls which tried to be so good.

But, luckily for Narnia, Miraz tried to bring in a harder, crueler and newer world yet, the Iron Age, so the Golden Age intervened, and it will turn Caspian into a Narnian King by giving him their example to follow. The Golden Age will preserve the luster of the Silver.

Sospespian tries to enlist the General on his side, points out none are safe with Miraz. A point Miraz doesn't help by threatening him because the bridge isn't finished. A great bridge built on the silenced trees of Narnia to chain Old Man River, so that the Telmarines can stamp on the neck of the Old World for good. Before they get to Caspian first. But not for the reasons he pretends.

"It's time you learned your history," said about a book of fairy tales. Because the legends are real, and so is the promise.

_I'll come back, when you call me. No need to say goodbye…_

The Four Pevensie children paddle a Telmarine boat up a Narnian river that has hollowed out a canyon in their absence. They stare at the walls – rough, impossible climbs they look like – that were not there before. This is the Age of Silver, where everything is harder. Lucy marvels that the dancing trees remain so still, sees the sorrow that would still them. Trumpkin grumps at her – the trees have died. Lucy knows better and Edmund frowns at him, knowing the story will not be that simple in Narnia, but Peter and Susan begin to mourn.

Lucy doesn't understand, how could Aslan have let this happen? He let the White World dwell for centuries. This is nothing new. The Golden Age followed it. Trumpkin just stares, and Aslan's name sounds foreign on his tongue. "He abandoned us when you did." If they had not left they would have died thirteen hundred years ago, and Aslan only assists your own rise. He never forces it upon you. But they say none of this. Peter says he didn't want to leave, and he promises that it will make a difference now. Willing the world to be as he would have it.

Eventually they haul themselves back on shore, but Lucy goes off after a bear. She tries to make a new friend, see another Narnian in these strange times. But he is a wild bear, a dumb animal. Like the trees, many of the animals gave up and let go of what was most precious because fighting got too hard. The wild animal tries to attack Queen Lucy the Valiant, and Trumpkin orders her to stand still by her title. She turns at that, realizes what it means, but she does not hear his warning. Even Susan, who sees the world as it is, tries to threaten rather than striking the bear. Edmund, who sees Old and New Narnia and can tell the difference, tells her to shoot, but it is Trumpkin who saves The Valiant.

Peter holds his sister tight, frightened of a world he cannot will into a safer place for her. Lucy thanks him, uncertain suddenly in Narnia. But if anyone can believe in its beauty _now_, it will be Lucy Pevensie. She can be Queen Lucy in England and the littlest Pevensie in Narnia. She cries for the bear who never let himself live, and Trumpkin warns them all, "You may find Narnia a more savage place that you remember." The tarnish of the Silver Age, but the Kings and Queens of Old have come to restore the shine.

But there is another Son of Adam who makes his way through the Forest, and the newness of Narnia is all still wondrous to him. So he would never reach high enough in planning its resurrection, but they could help him with that. Nikabrik and Trufflehunter follow him, try to get him to realize that he needs help to pull this off. They have him at "Minotaurs" but they keep describing them, his new people - the Old Narnians, anyway. And Caspian realizes that he doesn't have at least three and a half feet on every Narnian.

He starts to name the creatures of myth, and they tell him about themselves like you would talk about the mailman. That's how real everything just got for Caspian, and he is frightened. "What about Aslan?" Trufflehunter, one of His children, and Nikabrik, one of Hers, turn in unison and stare at him. Who told you _that name_?

_Which then turned into a quiet word…_

Caspian starts to tell them about his teacher, but then he stops. "These are not the questions you should be asking." A Telmarine king. They stop because Trufflehunter smells human – advance guards sent after Caspian. All three of them, children of Aslan and Jadis and Telmar, run from the arrows of the foreign soldiers. The Badger is hit, and first the dwarf and then the man run back for him. He tries to hand off the Horn then tell them to flee, and Caspian might have been considering it for a moment, but something in the undergrowth disables the soldiers and gives Caspian the chance to run from the previous threat and the new one. He hands the Badger off to the dwarf before drawing his sword to defend Narnians from the evils of the woods. He sees the ripples of the ferns that line the forest floor coming closer, but the next moment he is on his back and an oversized mouse with an undersized sword is standing on his chest.

Reepacheep. "Choose your last words carefully!" he says, in love with his own honor and the legends that will be told of his great feats. In love with his destiny to reach the End of the World and the Kingdom of Aslan. In love with the rhetoric of heroes and the words that can turn a triumph into a tale worthy of remembrance. Caspian obliges with, "You are a mouse." Not exactly Shakespeare.

Reepacheep tells him to pick up his sword, but Caspian wisely tells him no. A creature with more honor than inches is best approached unarmed – Caspian knows the way to stay alive and deflate Reepacheep's righteous anger. He is a King, and he's learning to adapt to Narnians. A quick learner. Trufflehunter stops the argument by explaining about the Horn of Queen Susan.

The Centaurs appear out of nowhere and tell him to bring the Horn forward. "This is the reason we have gathered."

_And then that word grew louder and louder…_

Susan and Lucy tried to explain to Peter that he needed to take directions, teasing like sisters rather than reprimanding like queens. What always made them work, as four co-rulers. Peter is not done trying to will Narnia to be as he left it, willing the changes of centuries, of over a millennium, not to have changed his home enough that he has lost his way.

In their conversations, Susan drops the new nickname for Trumpkin. The Kings and Queens of Old have renamed a dwarf the DLF, the Dear Little Friend. He is not pleased, because he does not realize what it means or will come to mean. "Oh, that's not at all patronizing, is it?" He is so fantastic, and he delivers the words beautifully. Peter, on the other hand, is having a hard time. The Shuddering Woods, which have been still for so very long, are beyond a river. But there is no longer a crossing along the path Peter once knew so well. _This is not my Narnia_; he grits his teeth, and then he plunges on, trying to will it otherwise. _This is my home. It will be as I remember it. I will save these people. I will matter in this struggle. I have come home. I have come here to be who I truly am. __**I am going the right way.**_

And he wonders why he cannot hear Aslan through all of that noise in his head.

What was once a ford is now a canyon. That's what happens in 1,300 years. That's what happens when a millennium comes and goes in your absence. Peter cannot will himself home again. Susan starts to explain the world as it is, outside of his head, and he tells her to shut up, he gets it. Yes, a little bit at a time. He defends himself with the very words Trumpkin used a moment after being rechristened the DLF, "I'm not lost, I'm just going the wrong way." Which is the difference between when Lucy and Peter stray and when Susan and Edmund do. Lucy and Peter always know the right thing, it's having the strength to do it. They almost always rise to the challenge and, at least Lucy, do so in the right way. Susan and Edmund lose their way. On the other side of that story, Edmund is the Just, and he has the wisdom of both sides, Light and Darkness. More than Peter and Lucy will ever understand. Susan has just begun to lose her mooring.

Trumpkin redirects their paths, and then suddenly Lucy sees Aslan. She could always feel him, right around every corner, and she is joyous as she catches sight of Him at last. When she turns back from looking to the others He is gone. They did not see Him. Our cardinal sin is looking back, seeing God and looking back at the world.

Lucy explains to a descendant of the servants of Jadis that she is not crazy (as prophets always have to do but rarely do successfully), and she tells them like it's as easy as dancing with the trees that Aslan wants them to follow Him – right off a cliff into the open air. He always asks frightening things of us. He asked Peter Pevensie, a mere boy, to lead a battle and become a King once. But Peter is afraid now, cowed by his arrogance, and cannot make the leap as he did once. Why wouldn't he have seen Aslan?

Because Aslan does not appear in our own personal fantasy worlds, even if we're trying to impress them on the real world around us. He is everywhere, but you have to be willing to look. Jump.

Instead, Peter Pevensie tells Lucy that she's doing what he has been – wanting to see Aslan so badly she thought for a moment she could make Him appear. She says she knows Aslan when she sees Him, and Edmund backs her up. Lucy is never wrong in Narnia. He learned that the hard way, when he was lost. Now he can see from the world of faith and the practical world both – he has been part of the White World and the Golden Age, the Ice and the Spring. He sides with his little sister who still shines with the Gold. He will jump. Just not alone. Even Lucy cannot do that yet.

The other three refuse to jump. "Look, I'm not about to jump off a cliff after someone who doesn't exist." The DLF is not a child of Aslan. Even if the Kings and Queens of Old were protected, he would not be. Susan says nothing, afraid of seeing and of not seeing, afraid of Phyllis and The Gentle both. They walk a long weary road to a ford.

They were needed that night, in the Shuddering Woods. Not as much as they would have thought but needed nonetheless.

_And then that word grew louder and louder, until it was a battle cry…_

A centaur is the first to say they should kill Caspian. Nikabrik restates Trufflehunter's wonder at through whom their prayers have been answered as a huge disappointment – which it is, if you want to look at it from that angle. Then they want to roast him alive for all the crimes of his people, and he gets upset at them because this stuff happened ten generations ago, but that's what it means to be a king. Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were not the worst rulers in the history of France. They were held accountable for all the crimes ever committed against their people. If Caspian would be king, of Telmar or Narnia, he must accept this.

And then Reepacheep comes forward and tells the coldest child of the White World that he has no right to take revenge on what Narnia lost since his people were the first to strip her of her beauty. Nikabrik says he would bring Jadis back if it got rid of the Telmarines and Trufflehunter intervenes to remind his friend that he is a Child of the White Witch, but the grove is full of the Children of Aslan. A unifying cry goes up, but it is cold faith to some. Not to the Badgers, Trufflehunter continues, who remember that Narnia was never right without a Son of Adam on the throne – that Narnia was only golden when the Kings and Queens ruled, because of a tree in a garden and a young boy who brought Evil into the world as it was being created, which made it our responsibility to make it up to the Children of Aslan that we brought the cruel mother Jadis to kidnap some of their family.

Caspian, who reminds them he is a prince, waits until they settle and decide to listen to him on their own. That's a Telmarine skill, we saw it in Miraz, but he speaks to them like a Narnian. He is building connections, taking two worlds and offering to make them one, rather than slicing wedges between factions to strengthen his own. Peace, a united kingdom. Take his throne back, and he promises them their kingdom.

A Centaur concurs, the Stars tell us the time is right. The marriage of war and peace written across the skies, and now a Son of Adam offers them peace and a Narnia of old – a Silver Age if not a Golden one. An overexcited squirrel asks if this could be a real shot at actual peace, their lives back – I am afeared, it being night, all this is but a dream.

Caspian, who has been raised as a Telmarine King, never believed in the Old Tales. But they are real. In such a world, so full of wonder, cannot a Hero's Quest put the land back together? The Silver Age is still a world full of miracles, you just have to work harder for them. And he's great at this stuff, throwing his love of them at the Narnians and writing himself into their story. "Whether this Horn is magic or not, it brought us together." Which was half its purpose. But this is not a stolen transformation born of a bloody war of attrition to be shoved down the throats of the Telmarines for revenge when it is over, it is a resurrection blessed by the Kings and Queens of Old and even Aslan Himself. "We have a chance to take back what is ours." And now he has joined the Narnian nation in its hiding place among the silent, stilled trees.

The Centaurs unsheath their swords and tell a Telmarine prince to lead them into battle. The others follow their examples, reaching out for hope from the least likely source imaginable. Caspian is strong, but with Reepacheep's, "We offer you our lives, unreservedly," he feels for the first time just how heavy is the weight of a king's burden. He is a general within seconds.

He will need to be, there is an engine of war in the way of the Kings and Queens of Old – the stubborn Pevensies who could not jump. The bridge is nearing completion and they have chopped down tree after tree to build it, their machines and their men move ever on and on, unstopping.

_I'll come back, when you call me…_

Back where they came from, Peter asks Lucy where she thought she saw Aslan, still not believing, and Lucy tells them to stop trying to be grown-ups. That was never what made them strong as Kings and Queens. It is not being thirty years old that they missed about Narnia this long year. The DLF points out that he is a grown-up, which makes Edmund, who remembers the strength of child and adult, smile because that's the truest statement ever.

Lucy tries to remember the things she has never forgotten but was forced to turn away from. She tries to take them back to make them see. She falls in the process.

And she is caught by Narnia. Rocks give way and a forgotten path is revealed down into the gorge. Sometimes Aslan does ask us to fall – not just jump. Fall off a cliff after someone who does exist, and let the world catch you. See the world as it is and as it could be at once and find a way not to go mad. Jump.

The DLF steadies Lucy as she leads the way across the stream at the bottom of the gorge. They all look so small. Both of them smile in just the same way, connecting for a moment. Trumpkin just saw a prophet follow the call of Aslan off the edge of a precipice and discover a secret passage that will allow her to save his people all the sooner. And he grinned at her.

But the other side of the gorge is very tall.

We do not see them climb it, just the encampment they make under the same stars that shone down their endorsement of Caspian's leadership. They are still climbing – it is a very long, steep way up.

No one knows that better than Susan, who sees the world precisely as it is laid before her eyes. She realizes Lucy is awake and tries to figure out why, if Aslan really was there, she didn't see Him. Lucy is pleased she believed her, but once there was proof, it wasn't hard for Susan Pevensie, who was never obstinate to accept reality as was her older brother. You have to want to see Him, Lucy says to Susan and a Child of the White World who's pretending not to listen.

Susan wishes she had believed they were coming back this whole long year, all the hours she spent saying goodbye and letting go of being a beautiful queen in a Golden World to be a schoolgirl who sits alone at lunch. All the nights she dreamed of when the world was better, all the days she spent convincing herself to see the world as it is. She is happy to be here, but she resents the prospect of doing all of that work over again. She just finished, she was nearly Phyllis, now to get another fleeting taste of Queen Susan the Gentle just means having to start over, losing the girl she saw in the pictures in the magazine. The next time, she will not be so lucky. Susan spends many years as Phyllis, that's why she is not there at Narnia's Ending. Phyllis dies the same day as Narnia, and it is not until then that Susan returns. Too late to be The Gentle where she first became that mighty queen.

Lucy, who does not believe that she could ever lose her sister so, rolls over and goes to sleep. The Gentle does not, savoring Queen Susan and training herself not to become attached, so that she can let go all the sooner next time. Remembers Phyllis, even in Narnia, and keeps that name tucked safely away.

_No need to say goodbye…_

Lucy wakes first in the golden morning, sees a nymph of pink flowers dancing in the mobile forest, and finally Aslan waiting for her in a clearing. It is a beautiful dream, full of hope and wonder and restored beauty that her brothers and sister wake her from. It is always a beautiful dream from which they wake her.

She greets him as her Dear Big Friend, bigger than He was before. "Every year you grow, so shall I. Things never happen the same way twice, dear one." It's not a coincidence, the "dear one," just like her "dear little friend." But that is all they have time for before the world as it is now interrupts the world as it could be – which is just the world as it is, if we have the wit to look. She moves along the same path, remembers the trees dancing around her and begs them to wake up and dance with her. Before she could reach Aslan, Peter puts a hand on her mouth and stops a sentry of Caspian's new army from shooting on sight.

The High King goes first, the Sword which toppled Jadis drawn before him. Caspian, a captain more than a general yet, attacks him and they fight until Lucy can look around and tell everyone that they're on the same side. They've found the Narnians. Peter names Caspian, almost suspicious, sizing him up. Susan screams his name, and Caspian stares first at the sword and then at the boy before him. Then he renames the Peter Pevensie his sister just identified, "High King Peter."

The Magnificent says, "You called?" in a thoroughly charming way, as if this happens every Tuesday in May. When Caspian is visibly and audibly shocked that they're children, Peter offers to come back in a few years. "You're not exactly what I expected," he says, and the Old Heroes never are. Neither is the Silver Age which greets them. Edmund, used to being ahead of the curve in bringing the worlds together, stares at the assembled ranks in surprise. Minotaurs standing with Centaurs, two dwarves living with a Badger.

Reepacheep offers The Magnificent his swords with even more gusto than for Caspian, and The Valiant calls him "so cute" under her breath. The Commander of the Mouse Cadets whirls with his wee sword and she apologizes – but ask Trumpkin, it just means that she loves you. She thought Mr. Tumnus was darling. Reepacheep backs down and suggests that The Valiant consider that she was not named Queen Lucy the Adorable when she was crowned at Cair Paravel, and for everyone's sanity but Caspian's, The Magnificent transitions into a discussion of their status for battle – which Reepacheep, in one solid motion, makes him the new General of. The dig at Caspian's fighting was really uncalled for, but it was Reepacheep that hurt. This is the Hope, the Grace, that the Narnians' expected, this is what they have waited for. Caspian, the most unlikely source of Grace imaginable, feels upstaged by the real thing.

Reepacheep led a bloodless raid and took several wagons of Telmarine weapons to the Narnian forces, because he is a pint-sized badass. Miraz walks his own General, very slowly because it takes awhile, through the cover story: the brutal Narnians attacked and killed three men to take the weapons and signed their massacre with an "X" for "Caspian the Tenth." Sospespian is not entirely impressed, but the General slaughters three of his men.

"You were right to fear the woods." "They came like ghosts in the night." Miraz will not give the Old Tales the power of phantoms.

"It seems Narnia is in need of a new king." But Miraz is not crowned yet, at the moment they've got to be at capacity.

Nikabrik and Trufflehunter ask their friend Trumpkin what the Kings and Queens of Old are really like as if The Valiant weren't standing two feet behind them. He begins as if to disillusion them, but they hear the affection and respect behind his "malcontents" and "stubborn mules" grumps. Ask even Nikabrik, it just means Trumpkin loves you.

The Centaurs assemble a guard of swords to welcome the Kings and Queens of Narnia to the tomb where the Stone Table resides. They pause then move forward, accepting the honor and returning it in kind. Caspian holds off, a King of Telmar and not of Narnia. He nearly became one last night, but now he has met the real thing he can no longer believe it. He became their General, their Rallying Cry, but these are their Kings and Queens of Old. He lags behind, unable to ask the Narnians for this honor he has not won. Peter and Lucy smile at them each in turn, easy in their roles as The Magnificent and The Valiant. The Gentle and the Just are more subdued, with their memories of Phyllis and Jadis invading their memories of Aslan.

Narnia follows its Kings and Queens of Old into the Tomb of the Stone Table, the Hope of Narnia rewarded after ten generations. But the Remnants of the Golden Age are not the answer to their beloved country's future, it is the boy who lags behind them, not yet ready to claim the glory of the Silver Age.

_Just because everything's changing doesn't mean it's never been this way before._


	3. into a battle cry

_Just because everything's changing doesn't mean it's never been this way before…_

The Tomb of Aslan, where He lay down His blood to save Edmund, is now a defensible fortress. Inscribed with the Legends of the Kings and Queens of Cair Paravel upon the walls. Drawings of Mr. Tumnus and the lamppost, the Scripture stories and fairy tales of Narnia. But the torchlight chases the shadows from a more sacred place still. The great Stone Table, still split, now an empty tomb. Where only Kings and Queens of Narnia go, Caspian included. Here the walls, telling their story like history, like a legend, are more elaborate. The Song of Old plays so beautifully as they look at the broken pillars surrounding the Table – it looks like Stonehenge. I wonder if Susan or Edmund sees England in the Standing Stones.

Lucy touches the Table, as only a prophet would dare, because a prophet would think nothing of it. "He must know what He's doing," she tells the other Kings and Queen of Narnia. How could you feel abandoned in such a place? And yet, it all seems so very long ago. The Legends have come back, but they look so very small beside the marble carvings of themselves. And the greatest figure, the Lion, is not there in life. Where would you feel more abandoned than an empty church?

Susan looks at the world as it is, her face twisted in skepticism at her sister's faith – seeing the world for what it could be and believing. Peter sees the world as he can make it, "I think it's up to us now." It always was, otherwise Jadis would have fallen centuries earlier. He never does for us those things we could do for ourselves.

Peter brings a Council of War into the most sacred of temples.

Everyone else that happened that night was just another version of that sin.

A Centaur spotted a Telmarine in the Woods – but more importantly a Telmarine soldier became the first (second) Telmarine to see a Centaur in nine generations. And their first thought is to kill it. Because humans are terrified of other sentient races. They don't seem to think they can measure up. We must be the only people – so there's no basis for comparison. Or they just know how royally pissed off the Narnians have every right to be and want to stop them from going all terrorist on their shitty little kingdom.

In the most sacred Temple of Old Narnia, High King Peter suggests going all terrorist on their shitty little castle. His argument is basically: they forgot that we but not they have an air force that can both attack from above AND transport our army across the country under cover of night. Also, he knows the power of air raids. It's the entire reason he found Narnia in the first place. It's an England solution to a Narnia problem – it might work, that's why he was brought here he thinks, but it will NOT make his Narnia again. But this is how he can will something – the England way. He's lost his grip on the Golden Age. Which is necessary, because it's gone.

Caspian is _not feeling this_ for about ten reasons. For starters, he knows every face in that castle. It's very different to kill soldiers than the servants who swarmed about you as you grew. Secondly, he wants to claim his throne rightfully not usurp his uncle as he was usurped, because he is a Telmarine king but, all the more since he's seen one, he wants to be a Narnian king. Thirdly, Telmar and Narnia can never live together in peace if this is how the land is won. The Silver Age does not need to slip that far. Plus he knows that castle intimately – it's never been taken. Peter and Trumpkin's practical rebuttals are not his point – must you take all of the Telmarines' pride? Is that what we will build the new country on? The Kings and Queens of Old (or rather, Peter and Susan, since Edmund and Lucy are having a different discussion entirely) are focused on ousting the supplanters of their people. Caspian wants to reconcile them. He knows it can be done, or he desperately wants to believe so – believe he can lead the Telmarines and the Narnians to peace, be a king of both. It's a good thing to believe in.

If the Battle is fought here, for the sacred ground of Narnia rather than the fortress of Telmar, then they have the advantage in all kinds of ways both symbolic, spiritual and practical. Edmund, perched more comfortably on the ruins because he knows this will be a long night, points out that Narnia could continue dying slowly out under a long siege, because he sees both sides. Then the silly squirrel gets cute and Reepicheep gets adorably sarcastic on him, and now I have images of Reepicheep kicking the shit out of a Telmarine soldier by throwing nuts at him because you know he could. I'm surprised he doesn't want to do so just for the story, so in love with his own legend. He and the Head Centaur stand beside their High King, who seems intent on beating down Caspian.

We pan out and, for the first time, see Lucy. She is sitting on the broken Stone Table. As a Prophet that is her right, her place of strength. She saw the world and her brother saved in just this place, and she saw divinity die to save mortality. So did Susan, but she is no longer The Gentle of tales. She stands beside the war kings, because she sees the world as it is. No better, no worse.

Peter turns with respect to the Head Centaur, because he is a good king. He just doesn't count Caspian as his subject yet, much less a King under him. The Head Centaur looks back at Caspian before answering The Magnificent's question. His answer is telling of his opinion both of the battleplan and this method of defeating the Telmarines but speaks of his honor and love of country, "Or die trying." Such fantastic actors, to get all of that into three words.

It finally provokes Lucy to speak. "You're all acting like there are only two options. Dying here or dying there."

_Just because everything's changing doesn't mean it's never been that way before…_

"Or have you forgotten who really defeated the White Witch, Peter?"

But Peter is not ready to listen to the Prophet, not ready to look beyond the way he would have the world be to the way that it truly is and could be at once – the world in which Aslan and his prophets walk. He looks at her, as sad as she is but resigned to an altered vision of the world he will impress on reality, "I think we've waited for Aslan long enough." This is the Silver Age. The Table is empty.

Not entirely true; it bears his prophet. But she looks so small.

_All you can do is try to know who your friends are as you head off to the War…_

If you cannot have faith, you make do with the sweat of your brow.

A griffin carries The Just through the night to a castle that looks more like a fortress. A sentinel has clearly been told to watch the night skies for a potential attack but cannot quite bring himself to believe in it. A moment later, he is gone and instantly replaced with Edmund, King of Narnia. This is what would happen in a victory here. Narnians would move into the Telmarine's old rooms, yet another New World would take the place of Miraz's latest one, rather than a return of the Old.

An English torch shines out into the night, and four more griffins launch themselves into the night. Not far away, a Centaur stands with a dwarf awaiting battle, the children of Aslan and Jadis standing together to take back their own. Minotaur and giant cat. They move together. Nikabrik is loving this. Reepicheep and his band scuttle into the shadows of the palace, waiting for the signal.

Susan, Peter and Caspian drop from the sky, and Caspian is the first to shed the blood of his own subjects. Were you watching? It was a warning, Peter. One who sees the world as it is, one who would will the world to be as he would have it, and one who sees the world that could be born out of this terrible war's labor pains, land upon the battlements of the fortress of Telmar. Susan's arrows make short work of the guard who aimed upon Edmund, in a good position at the top of the tower to do what he does best and see the world from both sides of the divide. A child of Jadis, Trumpkin, is also there. Four representatives: of Telmar and England, of the White World and the Golden Age. Choosing sides because they think they have to, because they think they cannot all exist together. Choosing the Silver over any of the others.

If I sang songs about him to even his heart's content, I could not give Reepicheep a better compliment than this – I love him despite my irrationally strong and panicky fear and hatred of rats and mice (can't watch _Ratatouille _without getting a week of nightmares – Winston and I could have a nice long chat about it in Room 101). But dang, do they have to keep showing all the silent scuttly bits? _With_ the squeaks?

Tying up the cat was adorable, however. And I loved his smile as he set out to do it. I wonder if this cat is related to the one who lost his ability to speak at the End of the World.

The Shadow over the Moon has gone, and Caspian insists on searching the Castle. "You wouldn't even be here without [Dr. Cornelius]. And neither would I." Without his belief that a man of Telmar could save Narnia and that the Old Tales were true. That Aslan and the Kings and Queens of Old loved their people enough to return. This is not how he would have had it end.

Susan sees the boys about to start getting into it and tells Peter that Caspian isn't needed to deal with Miraz and Caspian promises not to miss his cue, so he heads off with the DLF, to find the man of both their lines.

The DLF heads to the Gatehouse, where Reepicheep's band has made short work of the guards. Then they have an adorable exchange that makes me want a spinoff featuring them. "I was expecting someone, you know, taller." "You're one to talk." "What's that supposed to be, irony?" What it was supposed to be, of course, was a display of the subtle tensions that still exist between the Children of Aslan and the Children of Jadis. They've learned to coexist in their shared exile, but Reepicheep would have rather had a Son of Adam.

Caspian finds Dr. Cornelius in the dungeons, and he demands why he's here. "I didn't help you escape just to have you break back in." He did not want Narnia to take back its land in the way of the Telmarine kings. When Caspian tells him the coup is going down, he warns Caspian that he is only going down the path of all honorable Telmarine kings – assassination. Caspian gives him a WTF look, but you can tell behind it that he's always known this, just as he always knew one day he would be awoken with the words, "Miraz has a son," and that those words would mean he had to run. But now he knows it with all of him, now it is at the top of his mind, and he cannot dislodge it. Blood and revenge are hammering in my head. So he must act upon it. Dr. Cornelius apologizes for all of it.

Miraz wakes at swordpoint and does not flinch, because he too always knew that this moment would come. "Thank goodness, you're safe." Ha. Too bad there's not an audience; they wouldn't have been so quick to challenge his valor in the tent. Caspian orders him out of the bed and Prunaprismia murmurs tiredly and surprisedly. Miraz reminds her that they always knew this day would come. That's why she could grab a crossbow from over their bed.

"But you're not like me," he tells Caspian, "The first time you've shown any backbone and it's all a waste." The first time he has looked like the kind of Telmarine king who survives to rule, if one who miscalculated. But he has never looked less like a king of Narnia.

Prunaprismia levels the crossbow at her nephew, "I don't want to do this." She did not want to be a Telmarine queen either. Susan and Peter arrive in a series of quips, "We don't want you to either." "This used to be a private room." Caspian says screw the gate, he wants the truth for once. "Did you kill my father?"

Backed up against a stained glass window, Miraz is torn between, "Finally," and "Really? People don't know this? It was pretty obvious." Prunaprismia who never wanted to be a Telmarine kind of queen, snaps, "You said your brother died in his sleep." And Miraz is like, "Yes, that's still true."

Susan tries to talk some sense into Caspian, none of this matters in the world as it is right at this very moment. Because at this very moment that damn gate needs to be opened. Miraz decides to play with Caspian properly and begins with a little lesson in what it means to be Telmarine, "We would have nothing if we had not taken it. Your father knew that as well as anyone." Caspian IX would not have saved Narnia.

Prunaprismia is horrified, dropping the crossbow from its ready stance. But Miraz reminds her, just as cruelly, that she always knew this day would come. It's why the crossbow is over the bed. She may not have wanted to think of herself as a Telmarine queen, waiting for fate to just drop everything she wanted into her lap, but she is. And she has taken it. "For our son." Miraz gets his neck closer to Caspian's sword to provoke her fighting stance. Even to the point of getting blood on his neck.

"You have to make a choice dear," he tells her, like the choice she made to never ask how her brother-in-law died. Because she didn't need to ask. She married a Telmarine king, and she is a Telmarine queen. "Do you want our son to be a king or to be like Caspian here? Fatherless!" She shoots him in the arm, screaming, and both of them get away to raise the alert.

The scream makes The Just drop the torch. A guard finds it. Alarms sound. Edmund jumps down on the guard and fights with him as Peter yells to signal the troops. Element of surprise gone, advantages gone. Torch dead, England's plan in shambles. Peter opens the Gate even so. Susan tries to get him to abort mission, but he is determined. Like the dwarves and mice troops working together in the wheel above him. Susan demands, "Exactly who are you doing this for?" Because she sees the world as it is, and that world spells retreat. Her brother sees the world he could will into being, and he refuses to yield again. They cannot talk to each other through such a divide.

In utter joy, not knowing his attack has been compromised, the Head Centaur rears up higher than anyone has ever seen him or anyone before. Glorious, free, full of relief that the time has come after centuries of watching, he shouts, "CHARGE!" So do the guards of the Telmarines.

Narnia charges as one, the gate opens just in time. Peter shouts, "For Narnia!" the way he did in battle against the White Witch. Willing it to end as that battle did, complete with Aslan's reinforcements if the Great Lion so likes.

There weren't archers there then, not surrounding the whole of the battle. Edmund disables one and has to be reminded by his brother to flee from the remaining hundred. Miraz looks down at the boys who would be king, marveling at how they turn his terrible plans into exactly what he needed. A minotaur leaps from rampart to rampart until he stands upon the balcony of Miraz. As he is about to strike, Captain Glozelle kills him, coming up from behind to protect the Telmarine King in all but name. He falls, crashing through rampart after rampart, right past The Magnificent. It finally gets through.

It is always such a terrible moment when great men and megolomaniacs (it's so hard at times to tell the difference) realize that they cannot make the world as they would have it be. The difference is how they respond to that moment.

The Just, looking down at nothing below him, stretching down, sees the divide between the two worlds clearly. Trumpkin readies himself to die fighting as guards burst at last into the top of the Gatehouse. He does well at first, as they always do (never be the first guard into the room), but falls as they always do. Miraz ordered the gate closed.

A minotaur, a Child of Jadis who became a Child of Narnia in the long night of the occupation, leaps at the falling gate and catches it with his body, holding it aloft with all of his strength and his soul for his fellow Narnians. It is enough, at last, for Peter to shout, "Fall back!" Caspian, a captain and not a general who has become lost in the midst of the battle, is surprised that from above it's going that poorly. Susan looks at the world as it is and mourns Narnia. Even in Narnia, it turns on her so viciously. That is when Phyllis started gaining more ground, even in this place.

The Head Centaur takes The Gentle from the battle, the High King goes to collect the boy who would be, The Just takes a griffin out of his current predicament, the Minotaur holds the Gate, and as the Hope of the Silver Age arrives with horses, the Last King of Telmar fires into his own soldiers and takes down the Child of Jadis who gave his life for the Old Legends of Narnia. Many escape, many are trapped. They yell at the others to go, they yell in fear, but mostly it is the noble sacrifice, because they know the bargain they made. Those on the bridge stare, survivor's guilt crushing even those who did not send them to their deaths, squeezing The Gentle out of Susan Pevensie's heart, and some turn, in honor, to fight a fruitless battle. Peter's heart breaks. So does his personal will. Peter Pevensie's bitterness and personal pain become obvious, scars he can stare at and blame. How far he has fallen from The Magnificent.

The Just flies over the massacre of the battle, looking down, seeing how the White World and the Golden Age lie dead together in the fortress of Telmar. None of it is fair. Not this way. The Valiant sits upon the legs of the Stone Table, fingering the cordial that will repair the wounded. She does not know that no wounded will return, none wounded could escape the castle. This was wrong from the start, but she does not yet know how badly it has gone.

She can feel her people returning and runs out to them, thinking she will be needed. So few return.

When The Valiant asks The Magnificent what happened, Peter Pevensie blames Prince Caspian who showed himself a Prince of Telmar. He was walking even with Peter this time – though not because he earned his spurs and his place there – and he whirls on him, furious. He made his mistakes, but so did the Legend, the Great High King. This leads to a very public confrontation about taking power. The Old Tales have failed, and in rage they strike out at the only handy representative of the people who conquered and stole Narnia, and they make it difficult for either of them to lead their people with this display. Because Peter could not will his world into reality, and Caspian was deprived the honor of doing it himself. He needed the Golden Age's blessing to make it real, to make it Narnia of Olde, not a lean and hard hybrid. But the Old Legends are just people, four children, and two of them could not believe anymore. They were being asked to grow up and do things for themselves, and they forgot how to make it work here.

And if you'll spare me a moment – Peter and Susan turn to the world more as adults do, the real world, but Peter can see the other side, the better and glorious other side of miracles and faith and being our best selves; Edmund and Lucy turn to the other side, the spiritual realm of golden light and Lions, but Edmund can see the other side of schoolboy scuffles and the starvation of a long siege. And that's the difference between them. They work best as a whole. Peter and Lucy work best in general, are everyone's favorites, but I think I love Edmund most. And Susan, oh how I understand, lovely girl.

After all, it's Edmund who tells Peter and Caspian to put down their damn swords so that The Valiant can heal the fallen Trumpkin. Peter begins to see a bit more of the blessed world as she brings back the DLF, but Caspian turns away. Nikabrik follows him, pouncing on the failure of the Golden Age. There is an older solution still.

The DLF of the Kings and Queens of Old wakes up with a gruff, "What are you all standing around for? The Telmarines will be here soon." He is so wonderful. "Thank you," he continues, "my dear little friend." The Daughter of Eve, the Prophet of Aslan, grins at him. Of course. The Children of Jadis needed only to believe to be Children of Aslan.

The Telmarines finish the bridge and crown Miraz their king. The ceremony focuses on pledging of troops, which is not just for ominous effect because the cuts of them marching was enough for that. It's an insight into the world of Telmar – all about strength of arm and enforcing loyalty. And there are so many of them come to welcome their new king. So many more Telmarines than Narnians. Not just soldiers, but people. Most of them are simple people, who only want to live their lives in peace. Should they be exiled or oppressed in turn? But they were complicit with their nobles and generals and kings who stepped on the necks of the people of Narnia too long.

Caspian stares at the carvings of the Two Sons of Adam and Two Daughters of Eve who once saved Narnia. He never thought he needed them, but he believed in them. He hoped in them. If they had not come, he would have made do and at the moment he thinks he would have been better off. But they were so beautiful in the stories he heard and kept locked safe in his heart, soft and bright and glowing. Like gold. They could have made him so beautiful. But the world was not that kind. It is cold and hard and shiny. Like silver.

Once the world was colder still and harsh and blinding. Once the world was white with snow and ice.

_Just because everything's changing doesn't mean it's never been this way before…_

Nikabrik breaks it down for Caspian, the disaster of the war. Caspian asks if saying "I told you so" really consoles him. Nikabrik offers him his uncle's blood, they want it too, the Children of Jadis. Blood for blood, an ancient world under a red sun. Caspian follows the soft, glowing red light that once triumphed in this Stone Table now turned Temple. He calls it a power greater still, that held even Aslan at bay for near a hundred years.

Caspian draws his sword. A werewolf calls himself Hunger and Thirst, the kind that need not be quenched, "I can fast a hundred days and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze." He can live in the White World, he does not need the blessed sun or its fruits. "I can drink a river of blood and not thirst." Caspian turns at that, staring at Nikabrik in dismay. Jadis's favorite child looks up at him from the Ancient World – full of wild magic, the ancient magic from the dawn of time that would have given Edmund into the hands of the Witch. Caspian does not know the tale of the Even More Ancient Magic from Before the Dawn of Time.

_All you can do's try to know who your friends are…_

"Show me your enemies!" Unleash the unstoppable forces of black magic upon them. A harpy dances from the other side of the Werewolf. "What you hate, so will we. No one hates better than us," she almost coos. Her voice is almost gentle, nearly sweet. Caspian has his sword drawn, but he looks at them.

There is a picture called "We Three Fools" which contains only two. That is the picture of a witches coven here – "We Three Black Magicians." There are only two, but Caspian speaks in his heaviest accent yet, "And you can guarantee Miraz's death?"

"And more," is his answer. Much more death. Death is easy. He used to want rebirth. The forces of Black Magic are unstoppable – they cannot be resisted and they go on forever. Far beyond when you've had your fill of blood. Caspian nods the tiniest fraction, barely enough to count as assent, barely, as if he did not will it at all, barely aware that it was happening. But then he is the third in the ritual, inside the circle that summons the Dark and the White.

There is a spell, then the harpy stabs Jadis's wand down upon the stones that witnessed Aslan's victory over her. In this same place, her favorite children grin wildly in awe. They could not bring back their mistress until a Son of Adam fell into their hands. Between two pillars now rises a huge sheet of ice that reflects back another world entirely. The White Witch looks out from it.

That's the thing about the Silver Age: it is a mirror. It can reflect any age that has been or that will come to be. It won't get any of them quite right, but it can be any of them. It gets to choose. It can be the Golden Age or the White World or the Song of Beginning or the End of Days. The choice happens here. Now.

"Wait, this isn't what I wanted," Caspian cries, lying, too late. The werewolf grabs his arm before he steps out of the circle, holding his arm out for the harpy to take his blood.

Much better at cooing, Jadis looks at the child of Telmar, "One drop of Adam's blood and you free me. Then I am yours, my king." She gives herself away, ever so slightly, in her eyes. They always do. They cannot quite hide her lust for life, her own fierce and deadly will as it pretends to bow before another's. Caspian shouts as the knife flies across his skin. Jadis extends her hands, the ice cracking to let his touch draw her forth. He keeps his hand extended as the others rush to stop the Kings and Queens of Old from ending this madness.

She is so beautiful, as Edmund thought once. They said she was terrible, but she comes gently. The snow that is falling all around him is clean and bright and good. The ice under it is treacherous, but he does not see that yet. Snow covers so many sins. This could end Telmar and Miraz, take back the country for the Narnians.

The Silver Age could be White again. It could dazzle with the light of the cold sun off the freshly fallen snow. It could be blinding to Telmar and his enemies. The world could be so new and clean and tidy.

White.


	4. and the strength to jump

_Pick a star on the dark horizon…_

Caspian blinks. The Magnificent disarms the harpy. The Just takes out the werewolf momentarily. The Valiant stops Nikabrik from killing his friend Trumpkin. He catches her arm and tosses her back away. The harpy too goes flying.

Jadis blinks, breaking her look with Caspian to glance up at her old enemies who are still here. It was a mistake. Nikabrik rounds on Lucy Pevensie and Trumpkin kills his old friend for his new DLF. Caspian has started crying, unable to move forward or away. The ice of the White World freezing his soul, cracking and breaking all around him that beautiful vision he saw for a moment. Peter knocks him out of the way, "Get away from him!" Breaking the spell at last.

Jadis reels back into the ice, regrouping neatly with a Son of Adam still in her circle. She smiles ever so slightly, giving herself away, as they always do. "Peter dear, I've missed you," she says, knowing her magic is already strong here. His faith in Aslan has broken. She can fill the gaping void she sees in his life. This is not the battle of the White World and the Golden Age, both of whose time must one day come; it is the Silver Age, and it can choose.

"You know you can't do this alone." He was useless in London. He wasn't much better on Telmarine soil. Into the void steps Jadis. The sword that brought back Spring slowly drops, Peter still within the circle, then the ice begins to crack.

Because Edmund Pevensie knows how to shatter the White Witch's illusions. He, whom she tried to kill so many different ways, has the right to do this. To end the White World forever, because his sin was the last within its realm. Jadis looks at Peter, terrified for a moment, then she leans back and gives herself back to the Darkness, becoming a spirit to infect the woman who will steal Caspian's son from him in revenge for this choice, and the ice of the White World crashes at the feet of the Champion of the Golden Age. King Edmund the Just stands on the other side of the archway when it clears. That is why he could destroy her hold; he has been on both sides of the world she weaves around her and all those who enter the folds of her thick, furry white robes. So he knew how to destroy her.

"I know," Edmund Pevensie tells his brother, "you had it sorted." And then he walks away, managing to be King Edmund the Just at exactly the same time. Because he's seen both sides of that world and the Golden Age. So he was able to save the Silver Age from its own foolishness. Aslan stands framed on the other side, obscured by Jadis until Edmund came between them. Just like last time.

Susan looks at the world as it is, at the world Caspian nearly unleashed, and she walks away, betrayed utterly by Narnia. The Golden World is gone. Caspian and Peter stare at each other, remembering at last who it was they wanted to be. And perhaps, at last, the way to become it.

_Pick a star on the dark horizon and follow the light…_

Caspian sits on top of the ramparts staring at what will soon be a battlefield, waiting for the New World to track him down. He asks the Shadow Over the Moon why he never told the future king of Telmar his uncle's secrets – the secrets everyone knew but no one could prove. Like the Shadow's secret black dwarf mother. "I risked my life every day so that you might be a better king than those that came before you." He is of the line of Telmar, but he heard the Old Music. "Then I failed you." And the Shadow smiles softly at his student, he believed in Caspian X, the gentle boy with a heart large enough for both of the peoples of the divided kingdom. He still does. "You have a chance to become the most noble contradiction in history: the Telmarine who saved Narnia." Salvation from the least likely source imaginable – that is one definition of Grace.

Another is this: the prophet went to the King who was staring at a graven image of the Son of God, and he listened to her at last. Because a little sister sat down beside her older brother and believed in him. "You're lucky, you know…to have seen him. I wish he'd just given me some sort of proof." He doesn't work that way. Jump. "Maybe we're the ones who have to prove ourselves to Him." Precisely right. Jump.

The Just calls them forward, and they stand aloft as Narnia can't resist pouring out to stare at the assembled armies of Telmar, all bearing a single face on their armored helmets and bearing their machines of war. The many kings of Narnia look at each other as the Golden Armor of Miraz comes forward, the true King of Telmar. They need to remember now. But Peter was always best when faced with a direct adversary.

Trumpkin is not impressed with their plan, but then – he never was going to be. "That's your big plan? Sending a little girl –" and oh, how his voice breaks on that, his love for The Valiant, "- into the darkest parts of the forest alone?" Not to his dear little friend. As if he never saw Narnia catch her when she fell.

"It's our only chance," High King Peter the Magnificent – by which I mean to say, Peter Pevensie – says. The only chance is Aslan. What is your will in the world compared to Aslan's? Hardly worth following. He jumped.

Susan corrects the DLF's version of the world as it is, "And she won't be alone."

The DLF goes up to Lucy, heartbroken, "Haven't enough of us died already?" Not you. Not the precious queenling prophet for whom he killed his best friend/lover/roommate/brother. "Nikabrik was my friend too, but he lost hope. Queen Lucy hasn't," Trufflehunter tells him gently, but his job is to remember Aslan, of whom Trumpkin is still no child. He killed his hope with Jadis for the honor of the smallest queen who ever reigned, the most valiant prophet Narnia ever knew. He jumped. Reepicheep and a bear have faith, Children of Aslan. We will jump. "Then I'm going with you," he says, her Dear Little Friend – the star on the dark horizon that he would follow anywhere. The light still left in the ever-thickening shadows of his weary life.

"No, we need you hear," she tells him, lighting the path before his feet. "We have to hold them off until Lucy and Susan get back," Peter says, and this time sending his people to their death is said like a king rather than a boy playing chess. Only as the way to salvation.

Then Caspian speaks up, "If I may…" a Telmarine prince who chose the side of Narnia, sitting beside the Shadow Over the Moon, and he tells the People of Narnia how to use Miraz's coveted crown against him. As King, he is subject to the traditions and expectations of his people. Because he was raised to be a Telmarine King, to shoulder that burden, heavy lies the head that wears the crown, and he was taught to bear that weight. The Narnian circlet, in comparison, is a light yoke. "There is one in particular which may buy us some time." Because Peter's plan was bad, but it was the only option – until a Telmarine prince chose Narnia over Telmar, Reepicheep over Glozelle, Susan over Prunaprismia, Lucy over Sospespian, and gave them something better to hold their ground until Grace intervened. He jumped.

General Glozelle wonders if they are going to surrender, and Miraz knows that Narnia is far too noble for that. All these ten generations, they have not surrendered. I don't think even he, however, was ready for just how well King Edmund the Just would be able to play him – Edmund who has been the most noble of the Golden Age and the utter scum of the White, who knows the pressures and expectations and costs of both. Who jumped almost as soon as Lucy did, leapt off a Tower trusting someone to be there.

"I, Peter, by blessing of Aslan, by free election and by conquest High King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel and Emperor of the Lone Islands, in order to prevent the abominable profusion of blood do hereby challenge the usurper Miraz to single combat upon the field of battle. The fight shall be to the death. The reward shall be total surrender." Miraz misses it, how his entire world spins around Edmund Pevensie as he reads that speech, how when he pulls down the paper everything has changed. It was marvelous showmanship – the return of the rhetoric of the Golden Age.

And Edmund uses the power of the second Pevensie boy just as effectively, looking awkward as he rolls up the proclamation and corrects Miraz for calling him a "prince." He says, "It's 'King' actually," with all the authority of The Just, letting Miraz know that he is addressing an equal, and then adorably explains like any younger brother would, "Just 'king' though, Peter's the High King…I know, it's confusing." Miraz just gapes at him – is this kid for real? And he has to talk to him like he's a real king and this is a real parley?

Miraz points out the stupidity of him accepting the challenge, and Edmund just smiles and bluffs mischievously, pointing out they actually have no idea how many Narnians are in the Tomb of Aslan now – they thought all of Narnia was extinct. Miraz is all confidence they will be again – except that they never were, so semantics fail.

"Well then you should have little to fear," again a schoolboy, a moment ago he was a King. Edmund switches back and forth as easy as breathing, he is both at once. Goading the King of Telmar to the edge of the cliff with both. Miraz laughs, "This is not a question of bravery," and looks to his lords, but he forgets that they were never on his side.

"So you're bravely refusing to fight a swordsman half your age." It's a masterstroke. Because there comes a certain point in your life when someone being "half your age" stops being the reason you could kill them in ten seconds flat and becomes the reason they could kill you in ten seconds flat – and a King like Miraz cannot ever admit that he has reached that point in his life. So he has to treat Peter like a kid – way to go getting over that hump and using it for your own gain, Magnificent – that he could stomp on easily even though he's rightfully worried about this mysterious boy-king's demonstrated prowess. "I didn't say I refused." Dangerous, the bated boar. And Edmund Pevensie smiles slyly at him.

A kinder, younger Lord of Telmar says they stand behind their king whatever his decision, and Sospespian can't have that, so he plays his usual devil's advocate, pointing out their military advantage is the perfect cover to back down from the challenge. Miraz draws his sword in rage, and Sospespian rephrases deftly because the damage is done. Glozelle pipes in "helpfully," His Majesty would never refuse – remember, Edmund the Just, you are talking to an equal – he relishes the chance to show the people his courage. Miraz feels the sword in his hand and wants to run it through somebody as he stands at the edge of the precipice. "You –" he says, pointing at Edmund whose name and title shift constantly under his hands, "you should hope your brother's sword is sharper than his pen." Which is hilarious, really, because goodness knows Peter did need Ed for this, and allegorically it's relevant – the hard iron world of Miraz makes for stronger weapons than the gold of Narnia, lacking Aslan's magic.

Caspian puts The Gentle and The Valiant on his horse, his silent horse, and the prophet of Narnia laughs at him for anthropomorphizing the horse, not yet used to talking animals. Susan looks away from him, still angry about his impulse to make the world about to be set before her eyes so terrible – and so different – all over again. He reaches out with her Horn, offering to give her back the beautiful queen in the Golden Wood she spent a year forgetting, and she answers him with Phyllis, "Why don't you hold on to it. You might need to call me again." The Valiant repeats it, shocked but amused because she cannot imagine being anyone else, and Susan Pevensie tells her to shut up.

Narnia again lines the walkway as the High King and his brother The Just march to the pavilion for single combat. A centaur nods at him as Miraz's soldiers cry. Glozelle nods at Miraz's order, "if it should appear to be going poorly." He has no intention of jumping. Because this fools no one; it's about wasting time. That's the only effective use for this nonsense of heraldry and chivalry. Miraz snots as Sospespian that he plans to disappoint him and survive.

Simon Peter, do you love me? Then feed my sheep.

Faith, that Lucy and Aslan are coming, that the Son of God is arriving with his prophet soon. He can hold the pass until then – as penance for the deaths of every Narnian who fell in the battle of Telmar. Their rhetoric is masterful and untrue, every single line. Peter is in his element; Miraz is forced to dress in the Gold of a time that has passed. Then Peter launches forward with a flying leap, for the son of the Head Centaur who fell, trapped behind the Gate, and Miraz knocks him back with his shield in punishment for the Minotaur who died from an arrow as he leapt aloft to strike down the usurper.

_You'll come back…_

Susan and Lucy Pevenise ride, hard, and Telmarine soldiers see them. Susan stops the horse, hops off, and apologizes to the prophet of Narnia that she has to go alone. Susan who wouldn't jump cannot go to meet Aslan this time.

But it's a gift – because for an eternal instant the Gentle stood alone, with the arrows given to her on the day Spring and Christmas both came at once to Narnia after the Longest of winters, and the sun streaming down between the trees all around her was golden. And she remembered, at last, how it felt – a beautiful, strong queen in a Golden Wood. Phyllis is easier, but she could not save her sister or her people. She jumped.

The music all around her is the sound of coming home. At last. Maybe we have to prove ourselves to Him. Lucy still has a leg of the journey to go, farther to travel on her freefall of faith, but Susan is the last to jump. The last to stand and assume her true role and prove herself the Queen of Old.

Queen Susan the Gentle takes aim at one, then the next, then the next, then the next, and they all fall. Two more remain, and she is knocked flat. It wasn't enough.

It was. Because the Silver Age intervened, to save the queen of the Golden from a bloody death. Even if she must pass away. Prince Caspian of Telmar arrives and kills two of his own people to protect her.

"You sure you don't need that horn?" he smiles at her. She grins, the paragon whose consorts were the emperors and heirs of the far corners of this world but never nearly good enough until now. And she rides back into the Battle of her people, Queen Susan the Gentle of the Golden Age, the Lady of Cair Paravel, the Empress of the Lone Isles. The Queen of Old.

The High King fights with Miraz the usurper, every blow of the sword against his chest and back for the arrows he shot into the minotaur who held the gate up so his people could escape, the Child of Jadis who became a Child of Narnia in its darkest hour.

Miraz sends Peter's helmet flying for the creatures who smacked against the gate when the Minotaur fell, and he slices at Miraz's leg – another price for the same crime. Both men's eyes are wide with surprise and fear. Miraz glances as his general, upset, and realizes that he is out here alone just as Peter charges for the great cat who was knocked from the walls of the inner Keep. He just misses and rolls along the ground, now his helmet off he shows the difficulty of the weight of this fight – this sacrifice for the numbers of Narnia he diminished and the faith in Lucy and Aslan he refused to have.

Miraz slams his foot on the shield attached to his arm, dislocating his shoulder, for refusing to jump early enough to save so many lives, and he shouts as his brother and his subjects wince. Their champion is just a boy from England, too young to fear the war back home, but he is throwing his very body in between his people and cruel iron death. To gain a little time, to allow the Grace to return. He immediately swings his arm up and reengages Miraz, stands and gets ready for more.

Then he sees Caspian with Susan. Miraz asks if he needs a respite, and Peter is granted another three minutes to stall and put his shoulder back in alignment – but mostly he just wants to know if Lucy is all right. Susan nods, she's through, his sister and the prophet of Narnia are alive and on mission. He thanks Caspian who nods, "You were busy," throwing his body between Narnia and harm's way. Like a King must do.

Miraz snots at the General for letting it "get that close," and Edmund reminds his High King to keep smiling. Peter does and raises his sword to his people, who cheer, and his sister runs back to get their forces ready for when the Telmarines violate the sacred pacts of chivalry – because this is not the Golden Age and its precepts are no longer binding.

"How does he look to you?" Miraz asks his untrustworthy counselors. "Young." Magnificent.

As Edmund snaps his shoulder back into alignment, Peter Pevensie wonders if his parents will ever find the body if the High King perishes here for his country. He tries to tell his brother all those things you never bother to say when you aren't about to die, and Edmund shuts him up by snapping his arm back into place. The arm that toppled the White Witch – by holding her back in a battle like this one long enough for Aslan and the girls to arrive.

And, exhausted as he is, Peter prolongs the battle as long as possible, because that is what Narnia needs. So they fight, and with every second Peter knows that he is risking death and it will get harder and harder to stay upright, to strike out quickly enough that Miraz's superior strength and greater weight won't make the difference – take more and more punishment until every death in his ill-planned battle has been repaid and his beloved country has had time to prepare its defenses for when he at last falls protecting them from death and Telmar.

Finally Miraz calls for a respite, and Edmund who sees every side points out that this is not the time for chivalry – to give his brother the perspective he lacks, because Peter Pevensie is all chivalry, every bone in his body is composed of it. Not so his opponent; Miraz strikes when he back is turned, and Peter whirls, turns it around, and finally strikes a mortal blow. No time to prolong the single combat in that moment.

_Pick a star on the dark horizon and follow the light…_

King Miraz the Short-lived falls to his knees and taunts Peter when he raises his sword but doesn't strike, "Too cowardly to take a life?" The High King turns to him, made of honor and chivalry, "It's not mine to take." He hands the sword that toppled the White World to Caspian. Because Caspian still deserves this choice – this choice to be like his ancestors and the Newest World "perhaps you have the makings of a Telmarine King after all" or to be something shining in the light of reflected gold, "Not one like you," he says, slamming the sword into the ground – the soil of Narnia.

A King, in this moment, "Keep your life, but I am giving the Narnians back their kingdom." There are bigger things happening here than you and me. This is when he became a King of Narnia, his heart big enough for both peoples and even his murderous uncle. King Caspian, the Lion-Hearted, on whom Queen Susan the Gentle smiles down her approval very softly.

Miraz collapses into the arms of Sospespian, who is furious and threatening, but Sospespian takes the arrow that Miraz stabbed petulantly into a book of fairy tales and stabs it into the slits between his armor. The Kings of Narnia stare. "Treachery!" Absolutely true. "They shot him! They murdered our king!" Peter orders them ready for battle as Sospespian sprints to the ranks of what he will now claim as his army.

First blood is spilt, at Caspian's warning, by the High King against the charging herald of the dead Miraz.

Balls fly from the catapults, throwing the soil of Narnia and its ranks up into the air in an explosion. The General orders to the cavalry to charge after the airborne menace. Queen Susan stands on the parapet and orders the archers ready as the world explodes around her, seeing the world as it is and taking charge.

And, in a lovely touch, the Narnians have again underplayed their numbers, just like Edmund warned them. Caspian rides back into the Temple of Aslan and leads a charge of horse and centaur and minotaur – Telmar and Aslan and Jadis – through the depths of the caverns below, knocking over pillars as they go to collapse the world out from under the Telmarines. The Magnificent holds his ground, counting slowly, waiting for Narnia to catch him. He jumped. They have all jumped.

The world collapses, the cavalry of Narnia springs forward, Susan's arrows fly, and Peter and the army charge – all at the same moment. They jump and surround the first wave of Telmar. There is a death pit, and Trufflehunter dives into it. Reepicheep laments the lack of imagination in the dying of Telmar.

Griffins fly among the catapult balls and giant arrows prepared for them, trying to take out the steadily advancing ranks. Peter looks frightened the moment before he orders a retreat back to the How – "Lucy!" he calls. He couldn't give her enough time.

Susan looks at the world as it is, "Brace yourselves!" for the destruction of the Temple of Aslan. The entrance caves in on the rearmost ranks and the platform of the archers is attacked by falling trees. Trumpkin saves the Gentle, swings her from her fall to a place where Narnia can catch her. The Kings are worried for their people, that is the weight of a King's burden, but they are far too noble to do anything but smile in pride and strength and love for their people who leap into the fray and fight against terrible odds for their home. The Queen joins them and they charge out to meet the vast armies of Telmar.

So much bravery, because they think the end is coming. You always do, the moment after you jump. Jump anyway.

_You'll come back when it's over…_

Lucy rides hard, a single guard pursuing her, and then she sees Him out of the corner of her eyes. He roars, and her horse throws her. By which I mean, she falls, and flat on her back the Lion leaps over her to take out her attacker. But then she stands up, and she sees him, the Great Lion, and she runs and leaps into his arms. And, her Dear Big Friend, Aslan goes "oomph" and takes her into his arms, and his golden mane wraps around her.

"I knew it was you, the others didn't believe me." Not until now. Not until they found the strength to jump. Only then can He catch you.

Jump.


	5. so He can catch you

_You'll come back when it's over…_

"The others didn't believe me." They never do. Ask any prophet.

"Why would that stop you from coming to me?" He asks her, because it is never about what others do. It is about what you do. Excuses and discussions of other people's actions will get you precisely nowhere on Judgment Day. In fact, they are never that impressive. All you can control is what you do. This is not just a little girl, darling Lucy Pevensie, hugging her Dear Big Friend hello. This is also Aslan speaking to His prophet about her mission and responsibility to their kingdom.

She is honest. "I'm sorry, just scared to come alone." And His eyes are forgiving but sad, as they were long ago when He saved her brother Edmund from the consequences of going off alone down a dark path. There are things The Valiant fears, as every prophet fears: that she will not save her people from the wrath of God. When Nineveh doesn't listen, do you go outside the walls and sit under a tree waiting to watch the destruction or do you stand on the street corner until the very last moment screaming for someone – anyone – to listen? The hardest thing He can ask a prophet to do is leave and trust that that will bring more people to safety than wailing in the marketplace.

"Why didn't you show yourself? Why didn't you come roaring in and save us like last time?" Show Himself to whom? Which of the Pevensies were ready to see Aslan before now? Which of the Kings and Queens, which of the Narnians? She already answered this for others, gave them a piece of her faith: maybe we have to prove ourselves to Him. She was right, but now she asks Aslan why so many had to suffer and die first. Because you could not jump. Because you clung to the world beneath your feet, each and every one.

"Things never happen the same way twice, dear one," He tells her, full of gentle sadness and love. He came to the Kings and Queens of Old after a very long Winter, and when they had all truly returned again, so did He. That is the same story that happened last time. But restoration, resurrection, and growth lie in between, and that process happens differently every time. The alternative implies we reset back to zero each time. It's not the rules that change, it's the method, it's the journey.

"If I had come earlier, could everyone who died…could I have stopped that?" she asks, a prophet ready to bear the burden, a child asking how the world works. A queen who does not know what she is asking. We've invented parallel worlds, the trousers of time, a thousand theories of infinity and time travel and science fiction itself to answer her question. Because the only reply we are given is crueler than a yes or a no would have been, "We can never know what would have happened, Lucy." That's why he says it with such sadness in His eyes and such tenderness in His voice.

That's why He changes the subject. "But what _will_ happen is another matter entirely." You jumped. He can catch you now. "Then you'll help?" she says, smiling at last. "Of course." He likes to be asked.

"Will you?" He asks. "Oh, I wish I were braver," she says, because she has grown up enough to know what He might ask of her. This very moment she grew years sitting before Him. Aslan chuckles at His darling prophet, "If you were any braver, you would be a lioness." If you were any braver, you would be an Angel of the Lord.

Then Aslan stands, "Now, I think your friends have slept long enough!" Because that is all death – actual death and the slow cruelty of shutting down the soul – ever are to Aslan. Sleep from which it will be time to awaken. Also notice, it is Lucy's friends who are touched by the breath and the roar of Aslan. It is through her that He reclaims His children and His kingdom. Queen Lucy the Valiant of the Golden Age, the prophet of Narnia, Lucy Pevensie the girl who stumbled into the wardrobe is the key to becoming a member of Aslan's family. Those she loves, so will He. Because He always loved them, they were always His children, but they did not know until she touched them. He does not beat down the door, He waits for it to be opened. He waits for you to jump.

_No need to say goodbye…_

The trees of Narnia, that she missed more than anything else, begin to move, but we cut away to the true Dear Little Friend about to be awoken by the roar of Aslan. Trumpkin fights but goes down, rolling on the ground to recover advantage. Staring at the end of the world as it tumbles off a cliff after someone who doesn't exist for his dear little friend to find in the woods.

Queen Susan the Gentle fights valiantly, her and her soldiers clearing an area of ground. The boys are less lucky. Reepicheep dives alone under the feet of a legion of Telmarines, and Edmund sees the advantage of the Telmarines and the weariness of the Narnians and he knows what this will bring if Grace does not come. Caspian fights valiantly but is knocked into the pit he created to snare others. Centaurs and minotaurs leap over the phalanx shields of a marching legion of Telmar, magnificent and about to die, jumping higher than any Telmarine thought possible.

Peter watches them, doing what he can because he doesn't know what else to do rather than because he believes his will can save his people. General Glozelle sees Caspian down, picks up a spear, and charges at him, only to stop. And he remembers what he struggled for years to forget – because he too knew that someday he would be ordered to kill the nephew of Miraz – that Caspian is the rightful king of Telmar. Especially now. They stare at each other, strong and uncertain and trying desperately to figure out if there is a way that they can be on the same side. Glozelle stands on the edge of a precipice, wondering if he dares to jump, and Caspian wonders if he can extend his hand just so and help him to make the leap.

Then a tree root which has awoken lifts him off of his feet and disables him. I mean to say that the first person the trees of Narnia save is a Telmarine prince. Who became a King of Narnia. The most noble contradiction in history, the most unlikely source of Grace imaginable. High King Peter the Magnificent extends a hand down to help Caspian rise as Aslan lifts them all higher. The trees cause the Telmarines to scatter, reaching up out of the ground with their roots, belting their music as their murderers flee. The Narnians stand, the Kings and Queens of Old the only ones who have seen this before, the Forests Go to War. "Lucy," Peter Pevensie says simply and proudly and accepting of the world as it is rather than as he would have it be. Seeing a world better than what he had imagined for his people. Caspian stares, his people more miraculous and wonderful than ever he imagined they could be.

Sospespian's catapults hurl giant rocks at the trees, which reel back but still come surging onward. When one falls, a mighty oak sends his roots to destroy them. And High King Peter leads the rest of his forces into battle against what suddenly look like toy soldiers, "For Aslan!" They jumped, and they were caught by Narnia.

A faceless soldier tells Sospespian they can win by falling back to the river, perhaps more full of desperation than sense, perhaps because the roots would have trouble with the rocks and sand.

_You'll come back when it's over…_

The army flees, blasting their own horn of limited resonance, and an entire army is halted by the sight of a single little girl with the most adorable dagger standing simply on the bridge. By which I mean to say, the Prophet of Aslan, The Valiant, the Queen of Old, stood on the other side of the River and the army of Telmar halted in its tracks because they knew that they had angered a world more powerful than their own, that Narnia had risen, and that they were powerless to touch its favorite daughter.

And Aslan Himself stood beside her, as He always stood, and they prepared themselves to sweep away the worldly powers that had arisen in their absence as if they were nothing. Narnia jumped, and Aslan and Lucy caught them.

Sospespian charges, and his men charge with him, the trance broken, Aslan roars, and the River wakes up, its slumber broken and its power restored. Old Man River rises up, a force Jadis too chained for far too long but a time he remembers like it was yesterday. He pulls the bridge into his watery hands, stares at his jailor Sospespian, and breaks the bonds that held him imprisoned. As if they were nothing. They were. He had to jump.

Telmar surrenders to Narnia almost cheerfully, setting themselves back to rights.

Less joyful than ever before in his presence, the eldest Pevensies lead the procession of Kings and Queen to Lord Aslan. So many died when they didn't jump. So many of His children. So embarrassed to know that the fall they so feared was so small after all.

They kneel, afraid to look at him, and there is sternness, almost anger in his eyes. They kneel, their heads down to avoid seeing his displeasure, so they do not see it change. "Rise, Kings and Queens of Narnia," and the Pevensies rise, grateful and forgiven and called by their true names at last by the one who has the power to say what that name is. Peter and Susan, however, both look almost surprised by it.

Caspian stays down, and Aslan welcomes the Telmarines into his family through His first Telmarine son, "All of you," he tells King Caspian the Tenth and the First.

Caspian is all wonder, his heart big enough to hold them all but now he wonders how that can ever be enough in this land of wonders. It is the only thing that ever is enough – a heart big enough to love both sides of the divide is the only thing that could ever sweep it away. "I do not think I am ready," is what he says, but what he means is that he is not enough. "It is for that very reason that I know you are," Aslan tells him, because when you love two things that are divided so much that you do not think you could ever hold them both, respect them all, honor and protect them all – then your heart is big enough to hold them together and make one country of them. King Caspian, the Tenth and the First, rises. The Prince of Telmar and King of Narnia at once. A burden that would kill a lesser man.

_No need to say goodbye…_

The Mouse Cadets bring the fallen Reepicheep who dove to his death without a thought before Aslan came. Lucy dives toward her fallen little friend, taking the vial from her side, and pouring a drop into his mouth. He revives after an endless moment, gasping his thanks to Her Majesty, and tries to bow before Aslan only to discover his tail is missing when he topples over. Appearing before the Great Aslan without his dignity intact. He asks Lucy for another drop, but she knows that the vial does not restore the past but resurrects into a new life. "It could have a go!" he cries, adorably.

And Aslan tells him it becomes him. And it would – it would mark him by sight as the great mouse of legend, the magnificent Captain of the Mouse Cadets distinct for all his life among them. A legend with a brand and the mark of his glory. But he cannot see that, so he explains to Aslan who knows all the traditions of chivalry by which he lives his life. He explains to Aslan, the Great Lion, what makes him who he is and what he thinks he cannot live without. And Aslan tries to understand why we would ever let anything else – anyone or any code of honor – give us permission to be who we truly are. Reepicheep just looks like the cutest child ever before the Great King, and the Kings and Queens on both sides of the line of Mice smile at him, hopefully ready to remember this the next time they try to explain to Aslan why they do what they think they have to do.

And because he's on the verge of being truly embarrassing, because everyone who explains to Aslan why the rules and protocols of the world are important will always sound this young and this silly, his lieutenant explains what they have all decided: they will not bear the shame of wearing an honor denied to their chief. And Reepicheep stares at them in wonder, understanding a little better, as Aslan smiles at them all. Because this moment, not the previous one, is the point of the Mouse Code of Chivalry – "Not for your honor but for the love of your people."

And when he gets his tail, it means something new and something better than it did before. His "huge humility" is just too cute a claim, but it's not that. It's a reminder of the love of his people and his King and how nothing can take either from him. His tail has been earned in battle, and nothing can take away your honor unless you surrender it.

And then Aslan's family grows larger again, "Now, where is this dear little friend you've told me so much about?" The Child of Jadis who loved Queen Lucy, who stood listening but not joining the discussion of the Family of Aslan. He turns, cowed by the existence of God he denied, terrified of the call but jumping at the summons.

Trumpkin, Dear Little Friend to the prophet of Aslan, kneels, unable to stop glancing up at him in shock, as Aslan roars to awaken him. And Lucy teases her brother in Aslan's family at last, "Do you see him now?" And Trumpking smiles awkwardly, the first Child of Jadis since the fall of the White World to become a Child of Aslan. And the Great Lion's smile is also wide, his heart always big enough for every child of Narnia and Telmar, waiting for the Children of Jadis to open their hearts again. His family larger than it would have been if he came roaring in to save everyone before the youngest Queen of Old made her dear little friend.

The Silver Age gets to choose. It chose, for the first time, to include everyone.

_Now we're back to the beginning…_

A new beginning. A Narnia that holds them all. Not as bright as the Golden Age, but it extends the light to more of His children than that time ever imagined.

Telmar cheers, with varying enthusiasm, the heroes of Narnia, who glow in the warmth and the light of a Golden Wood, Queen Susan's laugh the loudest of them all.

But as Caspian comes down a set of stairs in his Castle he sees Aslan in conference with Queen Susan and High King Peter. He cannot hear what they say as no one heard what He said to Edmund when the poor boy returned. A story, a sermon, a talk about how to be a new person and let the old pass away – in other words, to grow up. A lesson that is hard and breaks your heart; change feels like dying because it is. If the life is bad, like Edmund's was, you can forget that it hurts like hell. The wisdom found on the other side of childhood is so beautiful, although the sadness is always there for what was lost.

Peter is sad that he cannot return, mourns his home and his self that must die so that he can become Peter Pevensie, so that he can be magnificent in England. Susan weeps, staring at Caspian who was the first consort worthy of The Gentle. She hears that the world as she sees it, the world set before her, must change again and she with it. Again. She already chose a name for herself on the other side of childhood, and it was less beautiful though easier. Whatever He said was not enough to stop her from returning to it, from turning away from finding a way to be as gentle and wondrous in her school uniform as she was in her Narnian gown and chain mail.

"We are ready," Caspian tells them, and both the elder Pevensies wonder if they are.

You never are. Jump. Change. Die. Trust that you will be caught; trust that you will be reborn. Remember how it felt as you jumped – how beautiful you were. Remember what you became on the other side of the leap.

Phyllis is so much easier.

_But just because they can't feel it too…_

Caspian, a kind king, has a heart big enough for both the divided peoples of Narnia, but he knows that not all of his people do. Some of his people belong to the New World and cannot turn back to the Old. "Narnia belongs to the Narnians just as it does to man." He loves them both. The claim has not been usurped but is shared. Any who cannot live in the resurrected Old World can have safe passage into the newest one yet.

That is one way to make the world better, and that is one way to find beauty. It is easier and less beautiful but it makes the world better all the same. If that is all you can do, if change does not feel like dying to you, then you must always go. Move on. Blaze the trail for those to come. Change, change, change the world – die a thousand times before you draw your final breath and never know that you have lost a thousand hearts along the way. Make the world more beautiful more slowly – by starting from scratch every time.

_No one knows yet…_

Glozelle is one such, to whom Caspian bows ever so slightly, and Prunaprismia who never wanted to be a Telmarine queen but always, always was, comes forward with her father and her baby in her arms. "Because you have spoken first," because you have moved forward because that is what you can do rather than fled out of hate, because you have lived your life changing the world by making it anew again and again, because you do so to make the world better the only way you know how, "your future in that world will be good." The world you make will be a better one, always. Because you have always had the strength to jump, even if it was because you did not know that it was dying.

Aslan breathes upon them, and a tree unfurls, making a door in the air. And Glozelle, Prunaprismia and her father walk off a cliff after a world that doesn't exist. Yet.

_Doesn't mean that you have to forget…_

Everyone who cannot make that jump freaks out that it's a trick – because three people and a baby just walked off a cliff and were never seen again, and that's a story with a very simple potential ending. Reepicheep offers to set out to explore the new world on behalf of the old, and Aslan looks at the Pevensies. It's time to go home.

Edmund is surprised when Peter speaks, when the eldest Pevensie finds that he is ready to jump again, to change, to die. He has faith that he will rise, yes, but he dies to Narnia because he knows that that is what is best for his kingdom – the burden of a king, especially a High King. He gives his sword to Caspian, the boy with the heart big enough for all of Narnia. And he abdicates. He dies.

Caspian does not understand, "I will look after it until your return," his heart huge enough for all the Kings and Queens of Old and not jealous of their beauty anymore, having found his own. Susan explains that they won't be returning, glad at least to know that the world will never change before her eyes like this again, letting it grow sadder and smaller. "We're not coming back."

_It's just a feeling…_

All Narnia will ever be to Susan and Peter now: a feeling. Also all their death is – a feeling. A no one knows yet what lies beyond it. No one knows until you jump.

Lucy is surprised as Edmund was. She who always believed they would be coming back. Peter is strong enough to say that his younger brother and sister will be returning, that they are too young to die. Not yet time for them to grow up. Peter has changed, aged before their eyes, the wisdom of Edmund in his heart as he prepares to die. He caught his first glimpse of the other side, and it's still only a feeling, but it is there.

Lucy asks if this is exile – a punishment. Aslan smiles at her, "Quite the opposite, dear one. But all things have there time." All things must pass away. Change and die. Unless a grain of wheat shall fall. Winter must come so that there can be spring. Edmund knows this. Lucy never will. She always knew Aslan would catch her, she will be reborn as she is now, only a little wiser and taller, every time.

"Now it's time for them to live in their own [world]." They were sent to save more than just Narnia. It is time to die and be reborn into the next world, which is also the old world. Not because "they have learned all they can from this world" because that's a ridiculous statement. Because Peter has learned how to stop forcing his vision on the world and is ready to change it through faith and the work of his arm and not by impressing his personal will, and you can do that anywhere but home is the best place. The real home. And because too much more jerking back and forth will snap Susan in half. It's time to commit to England.

Peter comforts her, changed already, you know through nothing so much as by this, "It's not how I thought it would be, but it's all right." One day you'll see too.

Peter Pevensie, ready to see the world as it could be and as it is, rather than as he would have it be. How beautiful is the world outside his head. Ready to move in the world as it is and as it could be and not go mad. Susan steels herself, strong and queenly, letting herself and the world as she sees it die. The Gentle is strong and selfless enough to make this choice. But not because of what lies on the other side.

_Just because they can't see it too…_

The Kings and Queens say their formal goodbyes to the leaders of their people, and Lucy breaks down and hugs her Dear Little Friend because she is Lucy Pevensie in this moment rather than The Valiant. And Trumpkins loves her more than even Mr. Tumnus did, the other Child of Jadis whom she brought into Aslan's family.

Susan walks over to Caspian, and she kisses him goodbye. "I'm glad I came back," she says, already saying goodbye to The Gentle and the life she let herself imagine here – again. Glad the world before her eyes was even for a moment as wonderful as this. Sorry it never will be again. And she protects herself from that heartbreak, becoming Phyllis in her last moments in Narnia. He speaks to her as a King to a Queen, "I wish we had more time together," and she sees them as she has been asked to, as a boy and a girl. "It would never have worked anyway…I am thirteen hundred years older than you." And he smiles, shy in the face of Phyllis as he never was before Queen Susan, because boys do not understand girls, even if Kings have respected Queens as equals and equivalents for centuries (though not many). She surrenders being known for the power to make him blush.

And that is a strength that Susan Pevensie can wield, now that she cannot be a queen in a golden wood, but she does not know that she could wield it as Susan rather than as Phyllis. She was seen and loved just as she was – powerful beyond measure and respected as a real person rather than an abstraction of beauty. She did not need to retreat into the power of beautiful women if she could have found the strength to be a queen in England, and if she was going to play Daisy Buchanan, she should at least do it for the things she wanted when she was most beautiful rather than whatever the hell it is that Daisy cares about that other people mistake for lipstick and nylons.

Because that choice – to play the Beauty, the Daisy, the Princess rather than the queen – loses you the respect of men like C.S. Lewis but lets you get all the Caspians you want. All the trips to America. And that's a legitimate response to the rampant misogyny and gender inequality in our society then and now and probably for all time, but it's still a step down from Queen Susan, ruler of Narnia and queen in her own right.

Just before she turns away, the Queen of Old kisses the new king of Narnia, Caspian the First and Tenth, and the new country gasps because: while a girl just kissed a boy, the New Royal Line was also just blessed by the Glorious Legends of the Golden Age.

"I'm sure I'll understand when I'm older," Lucy whispers to her eldest brother, and he smiles at her. I'm sure she never will. Oh, she'll learn about boys in time, but the only man who ever caught the eye of Lucy Pevensie was a King of Narnia, not a silly boy who saw her as a strange girl. A man who sees her as a prophet and a queen, an equal and an equivalent – by which I mean, someone who responds to the same things as he does, whose mind works the same way his does. Both sexes are from Earth, at least among the royalty. Mars and Venus are just easier roles for those who dare not be kings and queens.

Refusing to understand each other is just laziness.

"I'm older and I don't think I want to understand," Edmund says, because he sees what his elder sister is doing. He chooses not to dance the game of men and women whose steps force you to become Phyllis and Prince Charming because we're all afraid to be known. He knows better than to think he has to lose who he is when he changes, when he dies, when he is reborn. He knows you can see both sides, be child and adult at once, kiss the boy and be seen and known. It is a joke, but he looks worried for her.

Susan looks at Caspian a moment longer, saying goodbye before Queen Susan dies. The Kings and Queens of Old look at Narnia behind Aslan and Telmar behind Caspian, their work done in helping the boy with a heart big enough for all his people bring them together.

_Let your memories grow stronger and stronger until they're before your eyes…_

Lucy looks back at Aslan, sad to leave, forgetting for a moment that, like Trufflehunter, her task is to remember. Remember how the world could be as you look at how the world as it is.

They arrive at the train station just as their train pulls in, a mundane method of transportation as if it never was more. That doesn't mean it wasn't. Lucy whirls around, expecting Narnia to still be behind her. Because it is still there. And she knows, she sees both at once and does not go mad. She always could. She will say goodbye to this world from a train station someday.

They look at each other, actively making the decision to move forward. To leap from one world into the train that will take them to a new one. Easier to see, how the new world will catch them, but the same decision.

"Aren't you coming, Phyllis?" that same daft boy asks, not aware that the world has changed; he is making a new world, writing Susan Pevensie and himself into new stories because he thinks he understands the world.

Susan is the first to move, and then all the Pevensies grab their luggage and board the train that will take them to new lives.

_I'll come back when you call me…_

And to keep "Phyllis" from being the last word of this movie, which would be its own cruel truth but one too brutal for even the Silver Age, Edmund says with no trouble bridging the gap between the worlds, "Do you think we could get back?" And they all stare at him in slight concern because not only might they have another pre-return Peter on their hands but _we just went over this_, but he explains, "I left my new torch in Narnia."

So did Susan.

But they all laugh – at how easily he brings the worlds together into this very mundane problem. How he sees Narnia's magic and its reality better than any of them. How he can see the other side to which you are jumping, as Peter will be able to soon. As Susan built a false bridge because she did not dare look. As Lucy never needed.

Laugh at how it will be a relic of the Kings and Queens of Old, a treasure in the Legends of Narnia. One more way in which they will still be a part of the life of their beloved country.

_No need to say goodbye._


End file.
